Blue Bombers excited to be back on field as training camp kicks off

The first day of training camp holds a little more weight as Mike Benson gets older.

It’s often said that the first practice session serves as a clean slate. There’s a sense of renewed opportunity that looms over the field as players flip the page to a new season.

Even in his 12th training camp, the same could still be said for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ 37-year-old long-snapper on Sunday, but perhaps this year represented something bigger for some of the team’s longest-standing players, including Benson— the beginning of a collective ride into the sunset.

“Who else would you rather be with? Who else would you rather ride off with?” said Benson, who begins Year 5 with his hometown club.

“If that’s how you’re going to do it, if that’s how you want to put it, there’s no one else I’d rather ride off with than these guys.”

Benson wasn’t certain he’d be back this season. It took him months to get over last November’s Grey Cup loss to the Toronto Argonauts, a game he still hasn’t watched back and maybe never will.

He was visibly distraught after falling in the championship game for the third year in a row, and as he sat in his locker stall, entered the thought that he might’ve played his last down.

“It was a lot longer. This loss took a lot longer to kind of figure out, go through, think about it,” he said.

When many players arrived two days later to clean out their lockers and speak with media for the last time, Benson stayed away from the cameras, chatting with teammates elsewhere in the building before breaking for the offseason. That time was important to him, he said, as guys are usually in a hurry to go home after a loss.

Within a few weeks, after the initial shock had settled, he could still feel the competitive fire burning and started leaning toward a return.

By Christmas, Benson was all in for another run.

“I was just like, ‘I don’t want to stop, I want to keep going. I want to keep rolling with these guys,’” he said.

“The friends that you make… you want to keep putting it on for them, and talking to a bunch of guys in the locker room, you got to kind of figure out who’s coming back, if there’s gonna be a big core group of guys coming back — some of my best buds, Grey Cup being here, I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to keep going. One hundred per cent.’”

Benson is one of several players who could be playing in their final season. Quarterback Zach Collaros, left tackle Stanley Bryant, defensive end Willie Jefferson, defensive tackle Jake Thomas and right guard Patrick Neufeld are usually mentioned in the same breath— each of them pillars in the locker room and on the field.

Those are the teammates Benson returned for; they’re why training camp has the same buzz around it now as it did when he was a rookie.

“Day 1 of training camp, I still get those nerves,” he said. “I still get anxious. But (you’re) excited to see all your boys again. You get excited to see all your friends. Get excited for that first warm-up. You see everybody rolling through medicals, you catch up about the off-season. It’s like, yeah, it’s here. You can smell it. You can feel it in the air.”

Chris Streveler is also counting his blessings more than usual. For months, all the 30-year-old pivot could think about was how he would’ve done anything to be in the position he’s currently in, running around in training camp eight months after tearing three of the four major ligaments in his left knee.

“My goal was to be ready by Day 1 of camp. That’s what I said when I left here, and that’s what I set my mind on. And I’m big on setting goals. I’ve been through a lot of injuries, and I just believe if you have a goal and a positive mindset and you work your tail off, you can get there,” he said.

“Honestly, I just have a new appreciation for getting to be out here after going through that last year.”

Streveler’s knee will be put to the test a lot in next month’s season opener, a game he’s expected to start with starting pivot Zach Collaros serving a one-game suspension. That he’s practising already doesn’t surprise head coach Mike O’Shea in the slightest.

“He’s got that wolverine blood. He just seems to heal fast, and then I think more importantly, how hard he works at it,” O’Shea said.

“He is fully engaged in every step of that process. And then, obviously our medical staff is really good, so it all works in our players favors and Strevy just happens to be a guy that, I don’t want to discredit and say, ‘He just heals fast,’ he works his ass off. We’ve seen it other times, too. You look at the Grey Cup run, it was very impressive.”

This rehab required a certain mental toughness that Streveler wasn’t even sure he had, having never gone through it.

This wasn’t a broken bone. There were days when he felt like he was right on schedule, and others that were downright painful, physically and emotionally, as his knee didn’t respond as he’d hoped.

“It’s one of those things where you see it happen to so many guys, and you just don’t ever think it’s gonna be you, and then it is you, and it takes a minute to wrap your mind around (it). There is a period of time where you’re a little miserable to be around and maybe feeling a little sorry for yourself, but for me, I’m big on, ‘How quick can I turn the page and focus on what’s next?’” He said.

There were external sources that kept the dual-threat pivot attacking every day. In January, he became a father to a baby girl named Sunny. In March, he proposed to his girlfriend Taylor.

Beyond family, he was trying to set an example for others on the comeback trail. Streveler, who works with young quarterbacks in Arizona, trained two up-and-comers who were also rebounding from torn ACL’s this winter.

“To not only preach the mindset of things, but to walk the walk and talk the talk, show and set the example of ‘Hey, this is where I’m at, this is the way I’m attacking my process. How are you attacking your process?’” he said.

On Sunday, motivation was all around him. He was back on the field with his teammates, preparing for one more year.

“There’s just so many facets of what was motivating me,” he said, “I’m just thankful for all those things, because it gave me perspective.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca